


A Room of His Own

by phoebesmum



Category: Sports Night
Genre: Family, Gen, Pre-Canon, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-21
Updated: 2010-02-21
Packaged: 2017-10-07 10:58:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/64490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoebesmum/pseuds/phoebesmum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is always room in Casey's life for Charlie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Room of His Own

**Author's Note:**

> Written August 2008 for Storydivagirl's week of drabble-a-thons day 3: schmoop. No prompt.

In the end, Casey found himself stuck living out of a hotel room for almost six months, which was a whole lot longer than he'd planned. Not that he'd planned any of this – the whole thing, from the first suggestion of twin beds, through the 'trial separation' that turned into a long-term fixture that turned into full-blown divorce proceedings, all of that was Lisa's doing – but, still. He hadn't thought he'd be there much longer than a weekend, maybe a week. Or two. Okay, maybe a month. But half a year? Where had that time gone?

Partly it was down – he can admit this, if only to himself – to denial. Right up to the very last second, to the moment she dotted the 'i' in 'Lisa' (and at least he'd managed to cure her of the habit of turning the dots into flowers and smiley faces), he'd thought she would come to her senses. You don't just throw ten years of your life down the drain. Do you?

Apparently you do. She did. They had. And now it was up to him to pick himself up and start over – a man in his mid-thirties who'd never lived by himself, who'd never had to deal with laundry, or groceries, or housework, a man who couldn't tie his own bowtie without help.

He should see it as a challenge, he knew that. He tried to. Not, it's true, very hard. Mostly he sulked and snarled and snapped until even the most understanding of his friends threw up their hands and let him be.

But the hotel? Mostly, he stayed put because of Charlie. Once he'd resigned himself to the reality that he was going to have to make new living arrangements, he took time out to sit down and map out the practicalities. The first and most important requirement was, there had to be a place for Charlie. That meant two bedrooms. And _that_ meant problems. Do you know how much a two-bedroom apartment goes for these days? Even Casey, whose contract provided pretty nicely for all his creature comforts, thank you, looked at house prices and blenched.

Still, at last, thanks to sheer determination and a pit-bull of a realtor, the perfect apartment was finally found: bedroom, living room, kitchenette and bath, and a closet-sized space that was just, with persistence and a crowbar, big enough for a single bunk bed over a work-come-play area, close enough to Casey's office that he didn't have to set out for work the night before, and just barely priced low enough that he'd still be able to eat at the end of the month and, if he was lucky, have enough over to rent out a movie or two. Casey moved in at once and lived rough, gypsy-style, while the place was decorated and furnished. He determined, though, that Charlie wouldn't stay over until everything was perfect – in particular Charlie's own space (in all honesty, Casey couldn't quite bring himself to call it a room).

He brought Charlie up to the apartment on the first Saturday after the contract went through, and showed him around with pride of ownership tempered with nervousness that grew minute by minute as Charlie looked around himself, stony-faced, and finally said, "You're _living_ here?" in a tone more suited to the discovery of a dead rat in his oatmeal.

"Uh-huh," Casey said, trying to fake an enthusiasm he didn't feel. "And now you can, too, when it's my turn to take care of you. Won't that be great?"

Charlie just looked at him, and Casey felt his heart sink.

"You can't come back home with me and Mom?"

Casey tried not to sigh. They'd been over this, and over it, and he'd thought Charlie had finally accepted it. He knew it was hard, but – did Charlie really have to make it any harder? "Sorry, Sport." (He winced: too loud, too jovial, and Charlie was never a 'Sport' type of boy.) "Remember how we talked about it? Your mom needs some space of her own now, so this is where I'll be. Hey – " He tried to think of an upside, and failed. "It's like you'll have _two_ homes. Isn't that kind of great? You can keep stuff here – " He was about to say 'that your mom doesn't know about', but realised in time that that wasn't the kind of behaviour he should be condoning. "And … um … you can fix this place up any way that you want. Won't that be cool? We can go look for stuff today, if you'd like to?"

"I guess," Charlie said, in a chilly, polite little voice and then, because Casey and Lisa had done a good job of raising him right, tagged on, "Thank you, Dad."

The shopping expedition wasn't a marked success. Casey'd done his research – or, more accurately, Kim and Natalie had done his research for him – and he knew all the right places to go. Trouble was, Charlie didn't seem to care. Whatever Casey suggested, he'd just look at it, nod, and say, "I guess so," still in that cold, distant voice, until Casey wanted to (but didn't) take him by the shoulders and shake him. In the bedding department, faced with a limitless choice of sports idols, rock stars, cartoon characters and Ninja Turtles, Charlie's choice of comforter was plain blue; he peered at all the price tags in the furniture section, and plumped, without hesitation, for the cheapest and shoddiest. Casey overrode him on that, picked a fabulous high sleeper with desk and TV and fold-out futon, then listened to Charlie fret about it all the way home whilst wondering, heart sinking slightly, whether there would actually be enough room for it. (There was. But not by much, and Charlie needed to duck his head when he sat up in the morning.)

Finally, everything was ready. Casey took a personal day to welcome Charlie to his new (second) home. They spent the afternoon in the park, then came home to take-out pizza with, in Charlie's honour, pineapple, a forbidden second can of Coke, and a wildly inaccurate movie about cartoon bugs. Casey thought, when he heard Charlie laugh, that maybe, at last, he was getting someplace.

The next day, after Deborah had picked Charlie up, Casey stood forlornly in the tiny room, hands hanging aimlessly by his side. The bed was neatly made; there was no sign of Charlie's presence, nothing at all. The framed prints Casey had so carefully picked out stood stacked against the wall, the desktop was bare, the clothes rack hung empty.

Charlie couldn't have said more clearly "This isn't my home, and I don't want to be here," if he'd written it on the wall in big, red letters.

There was a knock on the door. Casey started; he hadn't been expecting anyone. Didn't, truthfully, want to see anyone. All he wanted was to be left alone to contemplate the miserable failure that he was as a father. Maybe it was an inherited trait …

Another knock, and, "Casey, I know you're in there. Don't make me call the super."

Dan. Of course. The man never knew when to quit.

Casey opened the door in sheer self-defence, and Dan strolled in, carefree and oblivious as ever, secure in his charmed fucking life. There were times (Casey had to admit to himself) that he didn't like Dan very much. Any time, for example, that Dan turned up to remind him that Dan slid through the world with grace and ease, never running up against the boulders and pitfalls that hampered Casey every breathing minute of his life.

"You okay?" Dan asked, and Casey gritted his teeth. _Of all the stupid questions - !_

"Fine," he said heavily. "Charlie's just …" He wasn't going to admit too much, not even to Dan, who always seemed to know everything, whether you told him or not. "He's a little bit slow settling in, that's all."

Dan had wandered into Charlie's room and was admiring the cabin bed. "_Man_," he said, clearly awed, "You think they make these for grown-ups?"

"You think you qualify?" Casey shot back automatically.

Dan just laughed, then moved suddenly, snaking a long arm down the back of the pillows. When he drew back, he had something in his hand. "Here," he said, and held it out to Casey. It was Charlie's toy monkey, the old, raggedy thing that Casey's mom had knitted for him before he was even born and which, even though Charlie was way too old for stuffed toys now, had never left his side since.

"Looks like he plans on coming back," Dan said, then, apparently at random, "You know Charlie's friend Kevin?"

Casey blinked at the sudden change of subject. "Er – no, not really."

"Me either," Dan said. "But Charlie told me that Kevin told _him_ that after Kevin's dad moved out, he only hung out with Kevin a few times, and then Kevin never saw him again."

There was something in Casey's stomach: a cold, hard knot. "That's not going to happen," he finally managed to say. "Not to me and Charlie." He didn't ask, _how come Charlie tells you this stuff?_ Charlie had always gone to Dan with his problems rather than to one of his parents. Casey didn't mind it … much. (Lisa, now … Lisa hated it. And hated Dan. Too bad for Lisa; she missed out on a lot that way.)

"_I_ know that," Dan told him, "and _you_ know that. It might take a little time for _Charlie_ to figure it out, that's all. You can give him that – yeah?" He breezed on by, just lightly touching Casey's shoulder as he passed. "You ready?"

Casey looked up, blinking. "Be with you in a minute," he said. "I've just – I've got something in my eye."

He held the monkey close for a moment; then set it carefully on the sofa, in pride of place. It would be the first thing Charlie saw, next time he came by his new home.

***


End file.
